Room5ians Rule! Mr Woody WAS their teacher. This is where they chat :-)
... and now that Mr Woody is pursuing other ventures, he gets to work with other schools too!

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Food Debate

In class today a stunning debate was raised about the quality of food available and whether or not it is worth us discussing it. Some people thought it was important to debate food quality because we cared for the general health of our society. Others thought that you can't blame fastfood companies for the behaviour of its customers - i.e. choosing to eat an imbalanced diet or creating litter. So, what do you think? Do we have a responsibility as informedmembers of society to spread knowledge? Or should we keep our opinions to ourselves and let individuals make their own choices , even if it leads to poor health. At what point does it become a group issue how individuals behave?Can you relate this kind of reasoning to other issues in society? When do the rights of the majority mean we should interfere with personal choices? In what ways does the government make choices for us for the benefit of others? Do teachers do it? Do families do it?Well done for thinking, justifying and expressing opinions.

Today in the debate everyone blamed McDonalds for 'false advertising' by having different burgers on the ad to in real life, but Burger King, Subway, KFC and about every other fast food place does that too! That was good that Kitty milo found that nutrition info on the net at ICT time :o) We need to have a closer look at that...Even though I am slightly more towards McDonalds, the state of 5 cross roads McDonalds is disgusting! The reason McDonalds in Chartwell is nicer, is that they don't have to hire people to clean it up, the Westfield cleaners do it for them.

well.....i loved debating this in class. but we do need to find out a better way to debate, but ahymashy was doing well TRYING to organise rm 5. i love debating and sharing my opinion, and i think it was really good how people who don't talk as much, got to say what they thought. some people that like mcdonalds were debating against them or vis versa. some people even turned me against mcdonalds. like you said, hamiltron's old class dismantled a burger and it had moldy lettuce and bread and stuff. also, Rosiegal said the meat is made of, like tastes like carboard! Sherbet said if you put this powder on a piece of bread it tastes like a burger and if you put different powder on another piece of bread it tastes like fries!!!that table that i found on the mcdonalds site was reealy interesting. i didn't know a boss burger had like about 83% saturated fat!!! thats is alot!!! what we did with Mr a-ham in maths was rally cool with the percentages thing and was really fun and i loved it!!!!! please do more maths lessons like that???????=]if you didn't get to see that chart thing, or want to show your parents then go to this site-

http://www.mcdonalds.co.nz/ourFood/and then click on the "Nutrition Information" document, then click open and then you'll see it. it's absolutely disgusting and amazing. lol.

My opinion is that fast food companies should be limited on how much fat they are allowed to put into the foods that they give to us enexchange for $$$ so it isnt as bad for their health and so we dont have to spend lots of cash on health taxes to the goverment because of health reasons.ashy-mashy

No Kitty Milo, It was the Pasta zoo happy meal that had the texture of and tasted like card board, and that was meant to be a healthy option!!! In the p[art where those who didnt normally talk talked, it was really frustrating becuse i just wanted to talk! To be honest im not really interested in it, as I did a project like ita t primary, and im not that interested init any way.

I think they should make fast food a little more healthier like trying to buy food from food suppliers which are probably more fresh than what they're currently buying. Your right mudpies it's just not Mcdonalds but they are the adverts that I see the most. Some adverts show a really nice burger or salad or something and when they give you the thing from the advert it looks worse. I don't really by this fast food but I'm concerned for other people's health and a lot more people are obese this days which costs the government money which they get from our taxes.

Hey guys!!!!I think that we had a wonderful debate in class today.I think that its pretty shocking of what companies put into their own food. Since this will be a very big comment I think I should put these statements into groups.

Advertising- Well I think that companies use FAKE stuff to advertise their food. Like some companies use painted cardboard cook it make sure it looks good by spraying it with chemicals. Use the camera to shoot it. They always zoom right up to it to make it look yummy. But when you buy it looks really sloppy. For example last year when we were doing our Advertisement study we each bought 5 burgers from Mc Donalds. They were Big Mac, Fish Burger, Mc Chicken, The Boss and Cheeseburger.Well what we found from all of them was that the cheese was stuck to the bottom of the bun. Whenever we tried to take it of the bun will go with it. The bun was really shiny and smooth. It felt like plastic. The packaging was really shoddy. The Stuff in all the Burgers was pale and lacked colour. It seemed like a pile of waste being shoved between two buns and sauce. My point is don't believe what you see on television. Cause when you buy it you won't see what your doing. The Government is trying to prevent fast Food adds from coming on Kids Televisions time. The reason is 1 their trying to get the kids to buy their stuff and make it cool and 2 they usually have a theme to the meal, they also sell toys with their products which really get the kids drawn in. They are also trying to fight obesity.

Obesity- Obesity has really become a epedemic over the years. It's just tragic seeing people eat that kind of junk. They often say that their hooked on junk food. Does that make you remember what Ms Perry said about scientific evidence and Obesity? My question relating to Obesity is Why do people get into this stuff? I mean come on they are practically eating themselves to death. I think that stuff like The Boss Burger should be taken off the shelves due to the fact that it's Fat, Sodium and Sugar levels are sky-high.

Prices:I think that this is the most severe section of this comment.The price of food is sky-high. Everything has gone up.But I think that the Government is concerned is that the amount of people going beyond the Poverty Line. And we all can see that.Like when me and my dad are going to the supermarket together we can see people purchasing Budget White Bread people buying absolute trash.People are starting to buy Coke and Fizzy and Chocolate and Lollies instead of Milk, Water, Bread, Fruits, Vegetables etc... Just cause it's getting expensive. I think that we should all donate Tins of food to a local Food-Bank to help. Last night on the news I saw something about Bakeries and how much it costs to make one massive bacon and cheese pie.It uses around 60 eggs which costs about 60 dollars. Now for the same amount of eggs it costs around 17 Dollars!!!I now know why eggs and poultry are getting expensive.The floods of Iowa.Recently their have been really devastating. Fact that Iowa is one of Americas top producers of grain in America.The reason why it also ties in with poultry is the grain to feed the chooks is getting more expensive resulting in price rises for the Chickens when their all wrapped up in the freezer in your supermarket.Why do you think this effects us when we are in the side of the world?

Well I better stop typing now.My fingers are sore.By the way have your say on Is Spongebob a Kid or A Adult on my blog.Check It Out!!!!!!!!!

And I do think that we should convince our mates to stop and think what their buying and asking these questions.What am I eating?Why am I doing this?Is it worth it?Those will help them quit the fast food world and help them make a good choice!!!!

Hey and In that debate Cheetahlicious said that its not only the major companies that are making fatty foods.She said that when Queenie had Fish "n" Chips she got a piece of fish and the batter was really thick and it was greasy.

Yuck!!!!!!What do you think of that.Why do you think that minor companies are selling food thats really unhealthy and un-quality?

ooooo. yeh hamiltron and cheetah are right. it's not just huge, well known companies, it's basically all companies e.g- small burger bar's, fish n chips shops. The same thing happened to me that happened to queenie. i had this enormous piece of fish but like um....... 60% of it was batter. I don't like batter at all. I didnt like it b4 i had that fish either. cool comments hamiltron=]ThanksBye:-)

That's right, Hamiltron! I went to a small chinese takeaways once, and found the meat still had strips of fat in it -infact, the meat WAS fat. I didn't eat a bite, got told off for wasting food, while my little sister snacked her way through the whole disgusting container!About what Miss Perry has noted, I agree with her. I have always wanetd to be a doctor, so I agree that the idea is totally plausable, even if I didn't know it existed! These sorts of things can switch a debate the other way round!

I agree with mudpies about the advertising and how it is not only Mc'Donalds, but it is not FAKE. On T.V. everthing that is put on has to be the truth. Which it is. True your food doesn't look as nice as they do on the ads but which would you prefer; waiting in line for ages just to get a nice looking burger that tastes the same as the other ones you get. Or. Waiting for a small amount of time to get a not as fancy looking burger but stil tastes the same. Ask yourself that. So you guys say the food they are using isn't from good places. Well, your wrong. The meat they use is 100% pure NZ beef or chicken. The drinks are all from NZ Coca-Cola factories. Lettuces, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and the apple slices are all from NZ. The milk and cheese are from Fonterra factories all over NZ. The buns, bagels, apple pies and muffins from NZ. The fish is even from NZ.The chips are even from NZ and the chips are even cooked in sunflower oil. Above all this there is a strict food testing system the food goes through before it even leaves the factory. So Maccers is doing pretty much everything that they can. Kitty Milo the boss burger only has 44.4% total fat, and it only has 20% saturated fat. You could even choose a hamburger with only 9.6% fat from Mc'Donalds. The 5X roads maybe disgusting but when my aunty used to work there it used to be spotless. So it is the managers fault. A lot of the litter you see maybe Maccers rubbish but that is the consumers fault. But hey, their bags are paper. Places like Mc'Donalds are fast food companies. What do you expect their food is like what fast food are all about, if you want nice food go to the restaurant down the road because fast food is fast food. It's the governments fault for spending money to help these obese people. If they weren't supported maybe they would think about what they are eating and get out there and go for and run. Mc'Donalds is acctually doing something about it. Other fast food places are just saying 'no' to making their food better.

Wow! Sorry, I haven't read all the comments because some of them are REALLY looooooooooooooong!

It's interesting to think that this McDonalds debate evolved from our conversation about our sustainable garden.... How did that come about???Kitty milo, you got your facts slightly wrong; Rosiegal said the Pasta Zoo happy meal tasted like cardboard not the meat, and hamiltron didn't say there was MOULDY lettuce! But anyway, I think we might need to have a blog debate because some people participate in blog conversations more than in verbal ones (does that make sense?)The only problem with that is that some people don't bother to go on the blog, which means some people would participate more in class. Well, I guess there is no solution...

my goodness! this is a cracker [pardon the food pun] of a conversation! you young people have excelled yourselves here. well done on both sides of the debate. very impressive opinion making.:-)i am a proud teacher today.

I agree with your post roo. People don't want to blame themselves so they blame the company providing the food. But really, McDonalds is just trying to run a business. People complained about the healthiness of the food, so they made it healthier, McDonalds are just trying to keep the customer happy.